Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
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Bush tea is a shrub from West Africa. Botanists call it Lippia multiflora. In Ghana, the Twi name is saa nunum.
The dried leaves are brewed as a daily tea. People drink it for calm, sleep, colds, fever and high blood pressure. The leaf oil is also rubbed on skin or burned to keep mosquitoes away.
Here is the honest verdict. Nearly all the research sits in test tubes and animals. Human trials are few, small, and weak.
So its effects in people are not proven. The one exception is the oil as a mosquito repellent, which has been tested on people in the field.
Long use in a tradition tells you that people valued the plant. It does not tell you the plant works. It also does not tell you it is safe.
No one has shown, in good human trials, how bush tea acts in the body. What follows is a proposal, not a proven path.
The leaf gives off a strong scented oil. In test tubes, this oil slows some bacteria and fungi. Whether drinking the tea does that inside you is not known.
In rats, leaf extracts have lowered blood pressure and relaxed blood vessel tissue. Animal results often fail to repeat in people. Treat this as a lead, not a result.
In animal studies, extracts have also calmed activity and eased pain signals. Linalool, one of the main scent compounds, has a calming effect in such tests. That may explain the old use as a bedtime drink.
The mosquito effect is the clearest part. Field tests on human skin show the oil keeps biting mosquitoes off for a few hours. That is a surface effect, and it says nothing about drinking the tea.
You will meet it in a few forms: - Loose dried leaves, sold in West African markets and shops - Tea bags, often labelled bush tea or Gambian tea bush - Leaf powder, sometimes in capsules - Essential oil, steam-distilled from the leaf - Creams, soaps and coils sold as mosquito repellents
The tea and the oil are not the same thing. The oil is many times stronger. It is meant for the skin or the air, not for swallowing.
Strength of loose leaf varies widely. There is no standard grade for this plant.
Bush tea has been drunk across West Africa for generations. It is common in Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Benin and The Gambia. Written records of its use go back to colonial-era plant surveys.
Healers and households kept it for several jobs: - A warm evening drink for rest and sleep - A steam or drink for colds, cough and fever - A daily tea for high blood pressure - Burned leaves or oil to drive off mosquitoes - A wash for skin complaints
In Ghana it is known as saa nunum in Twi. It has also been grown as a cash crop for export tea and for its oil.
This is a record of custom, not a record of testing. It is written here to explain where the plant stands, not to suggest you treat yourself with it.
Stop drinking it and see a doctor if any of these happen: - You feel faint, dizzy or very weak - Your heartbeat feels fast, slow or uneven - A rash, swollen lips or tight throat appears, which can mean a serious allergy - You have belly pain, vomiting or loose stools that do not settle - Your blood sugar readings drop lower than usual
Go to an emergency department if anyone swallows the essential oil. Take the bottle with you.
Get urgent care for fever with stiff neck, confusion or breathing trouble. In a malaria area, any fever needs a same-day test, not a herbal tea.
In Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire and The Gambia it is an ordinary food plant, drunk as everyday tea and grown for export. In the United States it is sold as a dietary supplement or herbal tea, with no approval to treat any illness. In the United Kingdom and the European Union it is sold as a herbal tea, and it holds no approved health claim.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
Reviewed by the HealisticMD editorial team How we grade evidence →
The published evidence for Bush tea / Gambian tea bush is weak or absent. That usually means no controlled trial has tested it, not that a trial found it ineffective — the two are different, and we grade only what has been published.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
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